Speaking of audio editors for the Mac, Adobe has its own wave-editing tool for Mac and Windows. Soundbooth is different from other entries in the field, in that its aim is really to woo a wide audience and not just those of us who work with sound regularly. Got a Flash project and need to make some quick sound effect adjustments? Making a swooshing noise for After Effects? Transcribing notes from a workshop session? Soundbooth CS4 is aimed at you.

Now, you can buy Soundbooth on its own for US$199 list, though I expect almost no one would. (For one thing, if you’re spending your hard-earned dollars on an audio editor, you’re likely to choose one of its rivals, like Adobe’s own superior Audition for Windows.) More likely, you’ll get Soundbooth as part of Adobe’s creative suite.

I actually quite like Soundbooth; because it was built from the ground up, it has a clean, elegant interface, and some unique features. Unfortunately, CS4 was not the step forward I hoped it would be for this fledgling tool. You can read a review by Mac guru Christopher Breen in Macworld; I know that review up and down as I was its tech editor.

Review: Adobe Soundbooth CS4 [Macworld]

Basic sound editor adopts more-advanced features

The problem I have with CS4 is that while adding multitrack capabilities make sense, the implementation just doesn’t seem finished. Many of the options in the wave editing view don’t work in multitrack view, including some you’d expect to work with multiple tracks visible, like adjusting effects, markers, and slicing up chunks of a waveform. (In every other program I’ve ever seen, those are mixing functions.) Apple Soundtrack Pro, Sony SoundForge, and Adobe’s own Audition all seamlessly allow multitrack edit working methods. I have a feeling we’ll just see this addressed in CS5, but Adobe, if you can manage a point-5 release of Soundbooth that fixes this, I’ll be the first to applaud.

Note that you can simply choose to stick to the Editor view and not bother with multitrack, which is what I’ve taken to doing. But needless to say, if Adobe wants audio newcomers to be comfortable with Soundbooth, these kind of idiosyncrasies won’t help.

It’s also a bit odd that Adobe allows non-destructive saves exclusively, rather than letting you “flatten” changes when you want to make them permanent.

Now, in my own Peak review, I complained about the lack of multitrack functions and non-destructive editing. Soundbooth CS4 demonstrates that it’s better to add these features late than add them half-baked, so BIAS, I’m willing to wait. But part of the reason I’m being a stickler on those issues is that I know it’s possible to add these to an audio tool successfully.

That said, I’m actually really happy to have Soundbooth around on my hard drive as an additional audio utility, alongside these other tools. I’ve got a stack of interviews to transcribe, so I’m eager to try that feature. Expect a report back (plus, hopefully, some published interviews with musicians) once I’m done.

The simple truth is, while Soundbooth doesn’t stand so well on its own, as an integrated part of Creative Suite, it’s fantastic. Let’s assume this is just an off release and the third version restores some of the fresh promise of the first.

For one last Macworld review, see my take for Macworld.com on Apple’s Soundtrack Pro – now, sadly, only available in Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio, not on its own (though the latter can be a nice option).

Soundtrack Pro 2.0.1: Improved editing and new features help you sync audio with video

Auditorium is a fascinating free Flash game that turns interactive music arrangement into a series of puzzles. The center of the game is what the creators call “flow” – a visual stream of particles that can be directed to audio “containers” to create sound. The user places circles with icons signifying direction in the stream to redirect the particles where desired. As the stream hits the containers, it produces musical patterns. The results aren’t entirely open-ended – that is, there is a fairly fun puzzle game here, in that you can only “clear” a level by directing the flow of particles through all the objects. But the creators do claim that:

Auditorium is about the process of discovery and play. There are no right or wrong answers; there are many ways to solve every puzzle. To get started, fill up the first audio level.

playauditorium.com

The game so far is just a “demo”; the goal is to flesh out the game and deliver a more fully-functioning version. There’s a precedent for that: games like N+ (formerly N), Crayon Physics, World of Goo (formerly Tower of Goo), fl0w, and Da Blob – even the prototype for breakout hit Portal – began their life as free games or research prototypes before becoming officially-published titles, just to name a few. In fact, a significant chunk of what’s happening in game design these days is beginning its life in research and indie projects. That’s likely because hardcore and casual gamers alike are hungry for new concepts, and A-list developers are saddled with epic projects and bone-crunchingly huge ambitions and budgets. I’m not certain Auditorium will be the next big hit, but this kind of model could generate the interactive music games that future-minded music lovers have been anticipating.

My only criticism here, as with many similar games, is that the actual music content is fairly static. It’s a good prototype, but it’d be great if these particles had more influence on music. That creates a new problem for game designers: the music itself is really part of the game mechanics. Part of the fault here is Flash, whose sonic capabilities are fairly limited without a significant investment of effort. I’d love to see a game environment in which it’s easier to prototype musical ideas, with live-generated musical materials and synthesis.

The prototype here is promising, though. Found other interactive music games out there you like? Do let us know!

(Thanks, Brent!)

It’s Flash 909, and Amiga Flash.

Code wizard Andre Michelle has already made a name hacking audio capabilities into Adobe Flash and ActionScript 3. We got to see his work in the form of real-time audio effects processing in the GarageBand-like online sample-and-compose interface for Splice:

Interview: How Splice.com Has Taken Music Real Audio Processing to the Web

Well, there’s more, well into the “Things Adobe Wouldn’t Normally Expect People to Do With Flash” category. There’s 8BitBoy (warning: link autoplays music), a Flash-based player for Amiga MOD tracker tunes. There’s a 909 emulation (cutely named FL-909). There’s open ActionScript 3 source called popforge [@ Google Code] with all the Flash-hacking tricks needed to do audio.

Now, the most tantalizing bit yet: Andre has a new music environment coming, and to tease its arrival, he’s put up a little application with Roland emulations and stompboxes — and it’s all part of the Rich Internet Application of the Future:

The Hobnox Audio Teaser is a new approach to give you a great opportunity to create music [compositions] online in your browser. The underlying audio engine is based on dynamic digital signal processing to provide very complex audio compositing in Flash. The graphical user interface is based on an unlimited sized desktop to layout your chosen devices as you wish to operate.

The first application design delivers you some Roland emulations and effect floorboards to play with. Since this is a Teaser, you don’t have the option to save your environment. However, already at this early state we provide you with some well-known software features as history, clipboard and auto-alignment of the devices.

“Hobnox” will be about more than some TB-303 toys; it promises to be an “online entertainment and rich media publishing platform.” I assume we’ll find out just what that means later. For now, there is a limited beta sign-up with the audio application; it wasn’t quite online when I looked for it, but hopefully it’ll show up soon:

Hobnox Audio Teaser – Come and register for private beta

Hobnox.com

It’s not all sunshine and happiness. These are hacks, not fully-supported features of Flash — and Adobe, like so many developers of supposedly “Rich Internet Applications,” often doesn’t have a clue about sound. Andre has run into problems with his hacks for that reason. Now, I know what you’re saying — why should Adobe, a hugely-successful business, care about your MOD player? And of course, they shouldn’t. But that’s not the point. The vision of Rich Internet Applications is software that is expressive across media, and that includes sonic capabilities. Maybe people don’t care about the ability to play old Amiga tracker tunes — well, unless Timbaland is looking for some new tracks. But they might care when speech and creative music applications and interactive sonic interfaces come into play. We’ll never know for certain if the RIA developers keep ignoring audio completely, because then we lack the platform for people to do interesting stuff.

In the meantime, though, it’s comforting to have guys like Andre hacking in brilliant ideas. I hope Adobe takes note.

Thanks to Chris O’Shea for this link. Be sure to check out his all-new Pixelsumo blog.

Keep those compatibility reports coming. We’ve heard some general frustrations with Leopard (as can happen with any OS update), and ongoing specific issues with M-Audio products. Digidesign Pro Tools 7.4 remains unsupported on the new OS. (Note that “unsupported” doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t work, as one reader observes.) I’m running Leopard here successfully on a MacBook Pro. It’s working nicely, and there are some nifty usability improvements, but on the other hand I’m not sure I’d go out of my way to make the leap when Tiger works so well.

If you’ve been on the search for a simple, straightforward audio editor for Mac and Windows, Adobe has officially thrown its hat into the ring with Soundbooth CS3.

Soundbooth Now Shipping [Hart's Audition, from the Adobe audio product chief]
New Soundbooth User-to-User Forum

Of course, to the rest of the world, the big news is that Adobe’s full Production Premium and Master Collection suites are shipping. But Soundbooth is one program that could make sense to buy alone, as a basic audio editor. It sets itself apart both by being cross-platform and by being geared for beginners and people wanting a simple, streamlined tool. And the killer feature: there’s a lasso tool you can use directly on the audio spectrum. I’ve been using that to isolate sounds in field recordings that would otherwise be impossible to grab.

I hope to have an in-depth look at the finished tool soon, so no conclusions about the shipping software yet, but in the meantime, see our preview from the beta.

Chris O’Shea sends along his latest project, a collaboration with sound designer and composer Owen Lloyd called Drop Spin Fade. Part of the Future of Sound tour, Drop Spin Fade allows users to position, sculpt, and play with sound in a 3D environment using gestural control.

Drop Spin Fade

The music/sound environment: Through a series of iterations, Chris and Owen have started simple and built increasingly-sophisticated sonic control using the setup, manipulating granular samples by spinning and bouncing them around the space. It’s not just positioning at work here: you can actually shape the sounds you’re hearing by interacting with the geometric forms in the environment. Eventually, the designers hope to give users more compositional control, making this into a kind of 3D sequencer.

The guts behind the scenes: The work was built to showcase the Illustrious positional sound system, which can use positioning data to create 3D sound environments. For control, the project uses the Gametrak game controller hardware, which you may have seen used in inexpensive golf and other sport games. It happens to be a very nice gestural controller, as well, with extremely low latency when compared to video camera tracking solutions. Visuals and hardware interface are performed in Adobe Director, routing positional control to Illustrious via MIDI and playing a live sound patch built in Max/MSP via OpenSoundControl data. There will be yet another piece as work proceeds on support for the Nintendo Wii controller.

I’m actually quite surprised that more work hasn’t been done with 3D interfaces — though I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, as it’s extremely labor intensive! 3D has focused largely on positioning, but with powerful hardware and software capabilities bring 3D to the masses, 3D interfaces are surely next. Iterations and shared research are vitally important to any medium advancing, so I hope we’ll have more projects in this area. (I happen to be working on something different but related in the 3D space in my own research, which I’ll share when I’m ready.)

Previously from Chris O’Shea land: Muon Speakers, with Processing Visuals

Okay, Akai. You’re going to have to get on the ball, fast. Sure, the new MPCs have all kinds of sophisticated music production capabilities. But can they remix the sultry, animal call of The Cheat, or make the ladies swoon with a solo by Strongbad?*

Onetwo, short video made with looping … uh … things [Homestarrunner.com]
Onetwomixer: MixMastah 800 for mixing it yourself

Yes, a lot of these Flash-based remix tools / mash-up gimmicks have been somewhat … limited … musically-speaking. But this is strangely fun. I dare you to use it live. (If they had only played up the “mash-up” angle, maybe they might have gotten mentioned in Wired. Sigh.)

*Oh, and Akai/MPC fans: I’m kidding.

The good news is, you’ll be able to buy Soundbooth standalone for US$199. And that sets Adobe apart from Apple’s Soundtrack Pro, which requires you buy Final Cut Studio.

Interestingly, this leaves Audition Pro as exclusively a standalone app. Adobe has promised it isn’t abandoning Audition, though. I think this makes some sense: Audition is really geared at the audio production market. The people who are experts in Photoshop, Flash, After Effects, and so on are more likely to want a streamlined tool like Soundbooth, and hire someone else to do audio production. Well, unless they’re one of the multi-disciplinary creatives who read this site, of course, in which case they may go all-out.

Adobe has put together a product comparison with Audition. It basically breaks down to this:

1. Soundbooth: Streamlined “task-based” interface (meaning it’s friendlier to non-audio people), Flash cue point support, nifty non-destructive editing. Automatic scoring (yes, we hate that at CDM because we’d rather you hire a real composer, but whatever) Mac (Intel), PC. Summer. Summary: The app you’d use for quick, one-audio tool edits, like to a Flash soundtrack with cue points or some adjustments to an audio clip.
2. Audition: Multi-channel mixing and automation, batch processing, “tools-based interface” (read, more “pro”-style, traditional audio app), looping. PC. Now. Summary: The big guns, for multi-track mixing and batch-processing a whole bunch of files.

What I notice is, for audio mavens, the two tools compliment each other. On PC, I could easily see using the two: quick edits in Soundbooth, bigger projects and batches in Audition, or some Flash file edits in Soundbooth and multi-channel Premiere soundtrack edits in Audition.

Still too early to call how useful Soundbooth CS will be until it ships this summer, and there’s plenty of competition (Audition, Peak, WaveLab, etc., etc.) Stay tuned.

Soundbooth CS3 Product Page

Previously:

Adobe Soundbooth Beta 2: Now Easier, More Photoshop-y
Adobe Soundbooth Coming in Standalone, CS Bundle Versions; Lasso Tool History
Adobe Soundbooth Beta First Look: Simplified Audio Editor for Quick Sound Editing (Windows, Mac)
Adobe Defends Intel-Only Mac Release for Soundbooth

More on today’s CS3 suite announcement on Create Digital Motion:
Adobe Creative Suite 3: Highlights for Visualists, Simplified

Visual Acoustics is an online musical toy built in Flash designed by Alex Lampe (”Ample Interactive”) of the UK. (Via Music Thing.) The motion visuals are beautiful, and the music and interface is very reminiscent of Toshio Iwai’s work (see Nintendo’s ElectroPlankton, for instance). As with Iwai’s designs, just about anything you play will sound good and ambient. Now, there are two schools of thought on that. One suggests that these kind of futuristic interfaces make music accessible to anyone. The other would hold that part of what makes traditional musical instruments lovely is that, while they take a long time to learn, the rewards are much deeper. I’m not sure one is inherently better than the other, but I still wonder if it isn’t possible to build visual interfaces that are harder to master but deeper to play.

If you want some inspiration for moving in either direction, Visual Acoustics certainly shows potential. Now you just need a Wacom tablet-enabled version that, rather than conventional sliders for parameters, adjusts to gesture and pressure.

Soundbooth Beta 2 Article

Given that Audition is already bundled in the Windows video production suites, maybe this means Mac bundle customers and lower-end customers will also see the app as an included product, which would be nice. We’ll know soon enough.

Equally interesting is the reaction Soundbooth is already generating. Apparently me comparing an audio editor to Photoshop pricked up some ears:

Adobe Soundbooth Beta 2: Now Easier, More Photoshop-y [digg]

And, of course, digg’s trolls immediately took to the comments. One good idea out of the discussion: OGG export, which has a lot of appeal to me and wouldn’t even require a license fee for Adobe. Mac users are still understandably upset that there’s no PowerPC version, but given the availability of Sound Studio and Peak LE, and the Intel-specific optimizations in the Intel-native Soundbooth, this argument seems like a waste of time.

Are Graphics Tools Intuitive?

More interesting, though, a lot of readers were upset that I called Photoshop intuitive. Personally, I think the basic lasso editing tool and graphical painting metaphors are quite intuitive, and I think a spectral view is one of the best ways to visualize sound. These metaphors have become so familiar to computer users, in fact, that we forget they weren’t the creation of Adobe Photoshop at all. The lasso tool, and most other paint tools that are now as second-nature to us as windowed interfaces, are the invention of Bill Atkinson, while developing MacPaint for the original Mac (pictured at right, courtesy folklore.org):

MacPaint Evolution [Andy Hertzfeld, folklore.org]

It’s rare that someone really invents something, but in the case of the now-ubiquitous graphic editing metaphors on which most modern apps are based, Bill really did invent some of the basic tools. And I’ll argue with the commenters on digg: this doesn’t just make sense to graphics people. I remember being in school and using the original MacPaint and Hypercard for the first time. I didn’t need anyone to show me: I started messing around with the mouse, I saw what the tools did, and I’ve been using these tools ever since.

There are other lessons here, too. Apple in the early days took smart interface concepts and applied them universally. MacPaint tools were in HyperCard; shortcuts worked everywhere. Apple doesn’t do that nearly as well any more; even Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro feel like they were developed by different companies. Adobe has a lot more integration work to do, too, and certainly apps are much more complicated than they once were — not always a bad thing, as I’d rather use Photoshop CS3 than MacPaint. But leveraging good ideas across products is absolutely a good idea.

The other lesson, though, is that the possibilities are still open for new interface inventions. Before MacPaint, there was no MacPaint: Atkinson made it up. Why not make up new ways of using our computer? Of course, Apple had an advantage, in that they could build software around the hardware most people weren’t yet using (the mouse). That concept has deep implications for those of us in music, because physical activity has always been what music is about.

Bill Atkinson was one programmer with an idea, of course, not a huge corporate development effort. I suspect we’ll see more good ideas come from individual developers. Some of these interface ideas will be intuitive, others more subtle. But there are still plenty of ways of exploring sound and image that we haven’t discovered yet.

Oh, incidentally, digg doesn’t usually bring down CDM. We’re having serious server problems that seem to bring CDM crashing to a halt if we look at it the wrong way. We’re moving to a new, dedicated server next week. At that point, please digg us, slashdot us, tell everyone we’re hosting free nude photos (synth pr0n?), whatever. (Just don’t send any more spam than the 2,000 spam comments we get per day. We hate that.)